


another time, another place

by imagines



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Angst, Fluff, M/M, Otabek Altin Week, daddybek, kawaiilo-ren’s mafia AU, “kitten”
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-27
Updated: 2017-10-27
Packaged: 2019-01-25 05:49:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12524392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imagines/pseuds/imagines
Summary: “Tell me a story,” Yuri says, grasping at Otabek’s sleeve. “Please, Beka.”Yuri’s already stretched out this little bedtime ritual until it’s as thin and transparent as a bad lie. Otabek is inclined to allow it.[for @otabek-altin-week day 3: “bad boy.”]





	another time, another place

“Tell me a story,” Yuri says, grasping at Otabek’s sleeve. “Please, Beka.”

Yuri’s already stretched out this little bedtime ritual until it’s as thin and transparent as a bad lie. Otabek is inclined to allow it. He’s allowed a great deal already tonight: Letting Yuri coax him into a 2 A.M. motorcycle ride through empty streets. Tucking Yuri into bed, his shoulders so delicate under Otabek’s hands; his eyes like sunlit panes of stained glass. Otabek would be glad to kneel, as in a chapel, for the owner of those eyes.

Yuri had asked for a glass of water, and Otabek had fetched it. Yuri had asked for a goodnight kiss, and Otabek had pressed one to his forehead. “Not _there_ ,” Yuri had whined, tapping his mouth with one fingertip. “ _Here_.”

“Another time, kitten.” As if Otabek hadn’t crossed that line already. He’d begun to rise from his perch on the edge of Yuri’s bed, and that was when Yuri wriggled free of the quilt and latched on to Otabek’s arm.

“Just a little story,” Yuri pleads. “Just a few more minutes?”

“Will you be good and let me go if I do?”

“I’ll be good,” Yuri breathes. “So good for you, Daddy.”

Otabek doesn’t point out that Yuri did not, in fact, promise to let him go. He resettles himself on the side of the bed. Lets Yuri slide his hand into Otabek’s, winding their fingers together. “What should the story be about?”

“Tell me about—” Yuri squeezes Otabek’s hand hard. “What we’d be like, if everything were different.”

Otabek’s throat ties itself into a knot, his breath tangling up in his lungs. “That’s not a story, baby. That’s just wishful thinking.”

“Tell me anyway. Do as I say, Beka.”

Otabek lets that go. All kittens have to learn to use their claws eventually. Yuri can scratch the hell out of him if he wants.Better Otabek than anyone else. “Okay, Yura.”

“Lie down with me,” Yuri tries.

And kittens who go too far get grabbed by the scruff. “No. Don’t ask again or you won’t get your story either.”

With Yuri sufficiently subdued, Otabek takes a moment to gather his thoughts. And catch his breath. Yes, he’d like very much to lie down with his Yura, and more than that besides.

“If we were different,” Otabek begins, “I’d be a mechanic, and you’d be—” He examines Yuri: so much power concealed in his lithe form. “Maybe you’d dance ballet. You wouldn’t take notice of me, and we’d both live out our boring, normal lives and die of old age.”

“I don’t like that story,” Yuri whispers, blinking fast; but Otabek’s already seen his wet lashes.

“Do you have a better one?”

Yuri closes his eyes, a last resort to hide his strange sudden grief. “If we were normal, I’d run into you at a bar on my night off. You’d buy me a drink, and I’d ask about your tattoos. I bet you’d still have some. We’d talk for hours, and then I’d take you home with me.”

A laugh catches in Otabek’s chest. “You think I’d go with you, just like that?”

“I know you would.” Yuri’s eyes fly open, red-rimmed and shining.

Otabek can’t argue with him there. “What would we do then?” This territory is both quicksand and minefield; the undertow of Yuri’s gaze could drown a demigod. Detonation is imminent, and the fuse is nailed to Otabek’s heart. He shouldn’t ask to hear sweet kitten fantasies that will never, never come true. Once upon a time, there was a boy for whom nothing went right, and that boy—a young man now—goes on forever not getting what he wants.

“ _I’m_ the one who asked for a story,” Yuri reminds him. “You tell me what we’d do.”

“Right. My mistake.” Now it is so much worse. The kitten has asked Otabek to spit out all his dirty wishes and broken dreams; to lay them at Yuri’s feet, like muddy jewels to be picked over, considered, judged.

“I,” Otabek tries. “I would—follow you into your apartment. You’d be famous, so you’d live somewhere beautiful. I’d unlace my boots at the door, I wouldn’t want to get dirt on the carpet—”

“I’d grab you by your shirt collar and drag you to my bedroom,” Yuri interrupts. “ _I_ wouldn’t be the type to worry about my carpet. If I’m rich, I can get it cleaned. I’d want you in my bed as fast as possible.”

“You rush things,” Otabek says, mildly. “I’ve noticed.”

Yuri shrugs, unconcerned at the observation. “Where would you touch me first?”

There are many lovely options, and Otabek can guess which ones Yuri hopes for. He could say them, just to make the kitten’s heart pound, but they wouldn’t be the truth. And although this story is a fiction, Otabek needs it to be true. After some thought: “Your hands,” he says. “I’d hold your hands and just look at you for awhile. I’d trace the lines on your palms. Kiss the tips of your fingers. Stroke the webs of your thumbs.” He does each of these things in turn to the hand Yuri had placed in his, listening until Yuri’s breath is coming quick. “Because if we were different, we’d have time, Yura. We wouldn’t have to hurry. We could go as slow as we wanted, no more stolen moments. We’d have long lives to know each other.”

Yuri makes a frustrated sound and opens his mouth, probably to tell Otabek to get to the good part already. But Otabek places a finger lightly over Yuri’s lips, stilling him.

“Shh, Yura. Be patient. I’ll get there.” Otabek waits until Yuri relaxes; then: “I would want more than _anything_ to take my time with you. To kiss you on the mouth, the insides of your wrists, your collarbone. I’d know how much you wanted me—you’d be arching against me, you wouldn’t be able to help it. I’d want to make a mess out of you.” He leans down, fracturing the fantasy. “Like I always want to. Like you _know_ I want to.”

Yura, his and not his. Not of Otabek’s world, nor of anyone else’s.

“We could be different,” Yuri says, which is nothing but his youth speaking. He lives in a glittering cage and doesn’t know it, though he’s started to catch glimpses of the bars.

“No, we couldn’t.” Otabek looks away then, so he won’t see Yuri’s face crumple. Sometimes, the knowledge bursts bright inside him: they’ve made it his job to cause the kitten pain. Like flash paper, the thought is gone in moments, or he’d be immolated in a bonfire of his own rage.

“You’re just _scared_ ,” Yuri hisses. “I wish you’d never come here!” He doesn’t mean his bedroom. “Then I wouldn’t—” He pulls Otabek’s hand to his chest where his heart pounds away, careless behind its shield of bone. “Daddy, don’t you know what you’ve done to me?”

“Yes, baby. I know.” Otabek’s done it to himself as well. Ruined the both of them.

The sun has set behind Yuri’s green glass eyes, and in this darkened sanctuary, Otabek relents. Yuri sighs into his mouth, for once accepting whatever Otabek wishes to give. And he gives generously—slow, deep kisses to steal the kitten’s breath away; teeth sinking into the muscle of his shoulder where the mark won’t show. One hand between the kitten’s legs, unmoving, cradling him through soft fabric. There is nowhere to go from here—nowhere that doesn’t end in blood on the pavement, a dark-haired body in an alleyway, and Yuri’s mascara smearing down his face as he screams.

All this decadence laid out before him, never and forever his. Otabek allows himself one last taste of the kitten’s mouth, then forces himself to pull away. “I can’t take care of you the way you want.”

Yuri tries to sink his claws into Otabek’s sleeve again, but Otabek slips free. “Beka, no, stay, just a few—”

“ _No_ , Yura. You had your story. You have to let me go.”

“Beka, please, _please_ …”

Otabek’s already heading for the door. He lets himself look over his shoulder, a mistake he can’t afford, but there’s no helping it. “Be good for me, kitten.”

“But you’ll come back, right?”

“Yura, I’ll always come back.” Otabek slips through the door and latches it, letting the image of Yuri’s wide eyes and bitten lip torment him for a few moments before shoving it down with the rest of his useless memories. There will be a day he doesn’t come back, he’s sure of it. But that story is a nightmare, and his alone to suffer.

**Author's Note:**

> • it’s llyn’s fault i love mafia AU stories about otabek putting yuri to bed, soooo thx for that, llyn. ;p
> 
> • i haven't written otayuri in over a month (!) and i worried i'd forgotten how, lol. but writing this was delightful and i've wanted to do something in [kait's universe](http://kawaiilo-ren.tumblr.com/tagged/mafia%20au) for AGES. thanks for letting me play in your sandbox, dear!


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